See Video: Going, Going, Now Gone

This familiar landmark was imploded along side the JFX around 7:30 Sunday morning (WBAL photo by Jim Russ)

Notches have been cut in the base of the Melvale Gas Holder so that when it is imploded it will "go ellipical" and fall like a tree safely into a vacant lot. (WBAL photo by Jim Russ)

Plywood boxes protect the precision explosives that will be used to fell the Melvale Gas Holder on Cold Spring Lane near the JFX. (WBAL photo by Jim Russ)

An interior view of the notches strategically cut into the tank (WBAL photo by Jim Russ)

That big, gray tank you used to see along the JFX is no more. WBAL's Jim Russ reports on the demise of what WAS a retired BGE natural gas storage tank. Download This File

The Melvale Gas Holder is no more. Don't know what that is? WBAL's Jim Russ says if you use the JFX near Cold Spring Lane, you've driven past it. Download This File

Generations of Baltimoreans have driven past it and had no idea what it was.

That big, gray tank that until Sunday morning loomed along the west side of the Jones Falls Expressway at the Cold Spring Lane exit stood 258 feet tall and had a circumference of 218 feet.

Local lore has it that the tank was used to store vinegar from a nearby manufacturing plant.

However, the Melvale Gas Holder, as it was called, was built 79 years ago in 1934 by the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light and Power Company, the predecessor of BGE to store natural gas that the utility made here in the city.

Natural gas is now delivered to Baltimore via high pressure pipelines, rendering the tank obsolete.

BGEÆs Rob Gould says Melvale had sat idle since 1997.

As the tank needed to be painted, a job that would have cost millions of dollars, BGE decided that it is time for the aging behemoth to go away.

Now the tank is a pile of rubble.

The tank was imploded just before 7:30 Sunday morning.

Residents in the area heard a loud boom as the tank imploded.

The sound was also heard at the WBAL studios on television hill which is about a mile away from the site.

WBAL meteorologist Ava Marie heard from Twitter followers who said they heard the sound from the explosion as far away as Parkville.

A WBAL Radio listener heard the sound from the implosion in Joppa.

Low clouds and fog threatened to delay the implosion.

A low cloud deck would have acted as a blanket, trapping the sound of the explosion closer to the ground, amplifying the noise for nearby residents.

Controlled Demolitions, Incorporated of Phoenix, MD waited for a thin broken layer of clouds to clear the top of the Candelabra Tower on TV hill, roughly 1,000 above the ground before imploding the tank.

The implosion still happened well within the window originally devised by CDI.

ItÆs unclear what will happen to the site where the Melvale Gas Holder stood, but BGE has recently granted an easement through the property for Baltimore City to extend the Jones Falls hiker/biker trail.

As a precaution, part of the Jones Falls Expressway (I-83) was closed for a short while on Sunday morning for the implosion of the decommissioned BGE storage tank.

BGE has sold the tank to Potts and Callahan, the general contractor on the project who will sell the salvaged steel to a recycling facility.